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Palm oil mills receive the
palm fruits in the form of palm fruit bunches of 10 to 30 kg. weight. So
first operation is to separate the palm fruits from the palm bunches.
Separation of palm fruits by hand is very big drugery. But TINYTECH palm
fruit stripper separates palm fruits from the bunches by easy mechanical
process. Stripping operation is done by the beaters welded on all the four
sides of revolving heavy square shaft of the stripper. When bunch is thrown
on the revolving beater shaft, due to the action of beater, entire bunch is
thrown up and is allowed to fall again and again on the revolving beaters.
Thus palm fruits are separated and fall down through the screen which are
collected by the bottom conveyor and is taken out from the outlet. Empty
bunches are automatically pushed on the other end of the palm fruit stripper
machine. TINYTECH stripper is capable of stripping off sterilised fruits as
well as non sterilised fruits effectively. Stripping capacity is 2 to 3
tonnes per hour. So one stripper can provide separated palm fruits to two
palm oil expellers. |
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PALM OIL
EXPELLER AND COOKING KETTLE : |
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Loose palm fruits are fed
to the cooking kettle. Palm fruits are cooked properly in the cooking kettle
by means of steam which comes from boiler. Cooking kettle has jacketed bottom
which is heated by the steam in the jacket. So palm fruits are properly
heated. Moreover, some direct steam is added into the kettle which gets mixed
with the palm fruits. So palm fruits are properly cooked in such a way that
all cells of the palm fruits become ready to liberate the oil. Thus separate
sterlisation process is not necessary in TINYTECH technology. In fact,
sterlization process is done in the cooking kettle. Properly cooked palm
fruits go to the crushing chamber cage of the palm expeller just below the
cooking kettle. Cooking kettle is mounted on the palm oil expeller itself and
is driven from the expeller shaft.
Worm shaft of the oil
expeller pushes cooked palm fruits with the force into the crushing chamber
which is a cage with thin long gaps all around the cage. Oil is liberated
immediately due to crushing action and oil flows through the thin gaps and
falls down into the bottom tank. Mixture of palm nuts and fibres is ejected
from the side. Expeller runs on 7.5 HP electric motor through the reduction
gear arrangement. It has capacity of crushing of 400 kg. loose palm fruits
per hour.
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The mixture of the palm nuts
and fibres is obtained as by product of the palm fruit expeller. It is
essential to separate palm nuts from the fibres. It is done in the hand
operated machine called nut fibre separator. It is inclined cylindrical
type revolving machine heaving all around suitable size screen from which
fibres can escape but palm nuts can not escape. So while travelling the
mixture from upper end to lower end of the machine, all the fibres escape from
the cylindrical screen while palm nuts are collected from the lower end of the
nut fibre separator. Fibres are used in the boiler as fuel. Palm nuts
are sold out to the palm kernel mills where they crack the palm nuts, get the
palm kernels, crush the palm kernels and get the palm kernel oil. |
Palm oil which we get from
palm oil expeller is in fact in the slurry form having a lot of solid
particles of sludge which is very difficult to separate from the oil. Many
scientific methods have been used by the scientists. But the easiest way to
separate the sludge from the oil is by adding a lot of water in the oil. As
water is heavier and oil is lighter, oil comes upward on the top and thus
clear oil is drained. For this purpose, equipment of two simple cylindrical
vessels, one inside the another, has been devised. Crude oil is filled up in
the bigger cylinder and smaller cylinder inside the bigger cylinder remains
empty. After some hours, the oil comes upwards on the top. When further crude
oil is added through the funnel which extends near to bottom, level of oil
increases. So the clarified oil on the top falls into a smaller (i.e. inner)
cylinder from the upper edges of the smaller cylinder which is of smaller
height than outer cylinder. Then clarified oil collected into the smaller
cylinder is taken out from the bottom. This oil is heated to remove the
moisture and you get crude palm oil (CPO).
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If required, this crude
palm oil can be filtered in TINYTECH oil filter press for better quality of
CPO. For this purpose, oil pump is connected as integral part of the oil
expeller with non return valves on both the sides. This oil pump sucks the
oil from the oil tank and pushes to the filter press with heavy force. So oil
is filtered in the filter press and you can get very clean filtered palm oil.
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TINY
TRADITIONAL PALM OIL MILL |
People in Africa, traditionally extract
palm oil with simple hand opeated oil press. They separate the palm fruits by
hand from the bunches and they carry to the traditional palm oil mill. Palm
fruits are traditionally heated with water and sterilized into the asphalt drums
by firing under the asphalt drum.
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The sterlized palm fruits
are fed to the hopper at one end of the pounding machine in which there are
many beaters welded on the square shaft of the machine. Beater shaft is
revolved through the pulleys and V belts by 5 HP electric motor or 6 HP
diesel engine. So due to beating action, palm fruits are crushed into
somewhat homogeneous mass of palm nuts and fibres containing palm oil. This
mass is discharged from the bottom outlet of the other end of the machine.
Pounding machine is also called palm fruits digester.
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Such pounded palm fruits
are filled up into the perforated cylindrical cage which is put under the
mechanical screw press which is operated by hand. By pressing the screw down,
pressing plate under the screw goes down into the perforated cylinder cage by
pressing the entire mass of palm fruits. Due to the pressure, palm oil
is liberated through the small holes around the cylindrical surface. Oil is
then collected into the utensils through the bottom tray. Two cylindrical
perforated cages are provided with every press so that when one is under
pressure, second cage is being filled up. Each cage can take about 40 to 50
kg of palm fruits per batch. About 25 to 30% palm oil is extracted. This palm
oil is traditionally used as cooking oil.
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